Detail of the Coffin of Llady Diefiawet

Illustration

The surfaces of the coffin of Diefiawet were covered with painted scenes and hieroglyphic texts to assist and protect her passage into the afterlife. Isis and Nephthys, the sisters of Osiris, protect the head and the foot of the mummy, and goddess Nut spreads her winged arms over the breasts. A series of gods arranged along the sides of the case provide additional divine protection. The inscription in the center of the lid begins with the parentage of Diefiawet, who was the daughter of a temple doorkeeper. They continue with the full text of Chapter 89 of the Book of the Dead, a magical spell to ensure that the Ba (spirit) should be united with the body after death. From Egypt; precise provenance of excavation is unknown. The coffin dates back to the 26th Dynasty, 664-525 BCE, while the mummy dates back to the Ptolemaic period, 305-30 BCE. (National Museum of Ireland-Archaeology, Dublin, Republic of Ireland)

About the Author

Associate Professor of Neurology and lover of the Cradle of Civilization, Mesopotamia. I'm very interested in Mesopotamian history and always try to take photos of archaeological sites and artifacts in museums, both in Iraq and around the world.

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Uploaded by Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin, published on 19 December 2015 under the following license: Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.